Catherynne M. Valente

May Recipe: Yorkshire Puddings, Albeit Tainted by American Hands

Yorkshire Puddings, Tainted by These Lowly American Hands

Makes about 6 

2 large eggs

1 cup (230 grams) whole milk

1 cup (125 grams) cake flour (us American kittens can replace 1 tbsp of all-purpose flour with cornstarch)

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp curry powder

Dash brown sugar

1-2 tsp fat per pudding—beef drippings, goose/duck/chicken fat, lard, neutral oil or butter

A significant whack of time...

May Experiment: Cats and Characterization--Toby Explains It All

Cats and Characters: Toby Explains It All

Greetings and salutations from the Mad Fiction Laboratory. Here in Maine, we are knee deep in that time of year when the heavens scoff and say: April showers bring May flowers? What? No, dude, half the time it’s still snowing in April, you’ll take these June showers and gold rainy garbage you’ll like them and maybe I’ll think about flowers next month if you pay me. 

It is also a time of deep sor...

Rest In Peace October

My cat died this morning. The experiment will be slightly late. Please try to understand. I'm sorry. I'm just not in one piece yet.

T-10 minutes to Google Hangout! T-1 Hour to MY LITTLE PONY

Those of you at the Google Hangout level, see you there in 10 minutes!

Everyone: See you in the Crystal Kingdom (i.e. Twitter) in an hour (ish)!

May Rewardsapalooza All Up In Yr Face!

Hello everyone. I am Cat. I have returned from a small hell of deadline, jetlag, and incredibly sick Maine Coon. 

Directly upon returning from France, we discovered my cat October on the verge of organ failure due to starving and dehydrating herself because of anxiety and depression, which in her seven years she's never shown before. We suspect it has to do with the presence of Lumen, whose existence October would like to point out she never approved in the first place. It has been harrow...

Hangouts and Handfeeding and Deadlines, Oh My.

Hello everyone. Heath here. 

As your  humble PatreonGoblin, Official Laboratory Photographer and Sometime Preparer of Catfood-slurry I have just jumped on here on behalf of Catherynne to let you know what's up.

When last you all heard from her, the Laboratory's Director-In-Chief, Prose President and CEO (Canonical Entertainment Oracle) told you all she was in Deadline Jail, but would be temporarily sprung to be a guest at the Imaginale Festival in France and that "When I get ba...

May Rewards Update

Hello everyone!

I realize May has been a wonky month--I'm basically trapped underneath a building-sized deadline and trying to dig my way out STILL. I'm also in Paris as the guest of a literary festival, so time is not on my side. However! When I get back, I will Belong to You.

I'll be live-tweeting, posting recipes, and other goodies to make up this bit of radio silence to all of you. How does everyone feel about May 25th for the Q & A this month? We couldn't get people to agree on ...

Experiment #2: Why Did the Chicken Make Out with the Road? Navigating the Hot/Funny Danger Zone

 Image: 'Tulip's Tight Five'  (courtesy of PatreonGoblin Heath) 

Greetings from the Mad Fiction Laboratory! Here in Maine, home of the Flannel Golems, May is upon us, bringing the most afeared-of-commitment dusting of green, my birthday, Eurovision, and this one tree with yellow flowers that blooms way too early every year and then stands around sheepishly like it accidentally wore a full ballgown to the weekly office strategy meeting—and I swear, right as I was typin...

Doing the Laboratory Scramble!

Greetings, mad fictioneers!

Due to the crushing gravitational weight of an unmet deadline, I've been a bit slow to get to some of the rewards this month. I'm sorry! When you expect the sentient denouement goo to bubble quickly and it decides it would much rather have a good long think about the nature of life in an Erlenmeyer flask before getting around to critical temperature, everything else in the Lab starts piling up. But! We do not let little things like time being finite and linear and s...

April Is the Quickest Month

Hi everybody! 

I've had a big deadline this month and between that, taxes, traveling already for The Glass Town Game  even though it's not out till September, and everything else under the sun, I've been slow to get to this month's rewards. 

BUT THE LAB CHUGGS ON. 

How would this Saturday work for this month's Google Hangout? And perhaps Sunday night f...

The Good Kind of Lottery (No rocks)

A post catching you all up on Laboratory plans for the rest of the month is incoming, but in the meantime, I wanted to let you all know that after extensive simulations conducted by the Denizens that resulted in almost no workplace accidents* we have added a new goal here in the Laboratory!

If we can get to the $2500 mark, every month, using highly scientific methods (an improbably large dartboard and the enthusiastic assistance of the Sentient Robotic Arm Who Hangs Around But No One Is Exactl...

Experiment #1 Laboratory Chow: Penang Alla Vodka

Penang Alla Vodka

Here is the first Mad Fiction Laboratory Employee Lunch Definitely-Not-Last-Week’s-Lab Rats Delicacy!

I have every reason to believe this might be the only dish I have actually invented. It all happened because I am an Italian-American woman who fell in love with someone allergic to onions, garlic, and red wine. The struggle is so real. So whenever he’s away for a few days ALL I DO IS ONIONGARLIC OONTZ OONTZ ALL THE TIME DO THE...

Experiment #1: Let’s Get It Started In Here (and the Bass Keep Running)

Greetings from the Mad Fiction Laboratory! Here in Maine, Eternal Home of Ancient Horrors, it’s still trying to decide whether this whole “spring” idea is really worth committing to since that we’re just going to have to put all the snow back in eight months anyway, and besides, flowers are hard and mud is easy. However, the Increasingly and Alarmingly Sentient Boiler of Doom has had a word or two with the axial tilt of the planet and those words were: “Listen here, you stupid...

Storified Live Tweeting Of "Stung" and Other Things

Friendly PatreonGoblin Heath with an Update for you all.

First up, here are the collected tweets of 'Stung: the Ultimate Buzzkill" for those of you who requested!

As the Laboratory clock ticks toward midnight, and the Thing That Lives In the Wastepaper Basket Except For When You look In There extends a glittery tentacle toward the March page of the rip-away wall calendar...

The Monthly Experiment  (complete with Recipe,  thanks to your support in meeting the goal!) is on ...

GIANT MUTANT WASP LIVE-TWEET EXTRAVAGANZA TONIGHT

Just finished test-kitchening this month's recipe for you guys and I will be starting the live-tweet of Stung in 15 minutes!

I'll use the hashtag #stunging and I'll Storify it all afterward for those of you who can't follow along. 

Stung is also on Netflix if you want to watch with me!

HERE WE GO.

CHOOSE THE FORM OF THE DESTRUCTOR!

Ladies and Gentlemen and Mutated Wasps and Magical Ponies, I have journeyed to the Mart of Walls and returned with, not one, but two, victims for the sacrificial altar of snark!

As they had no "bin" per se, I let my Twitter followers choose a row and slot position on the rack and pulled My Little Pony: Adventures in the Crystal Empire. BUT. I could not leave the movie you see above this post to languish in obscurity when it is APPARENTLY ABOUT A FANCY GARDEN PARTY THAT GOES WRONG WHEN...

Google Hangout Q&A Sunday at 1:30 pm EST--and Other Scheduling Things

Ok, as no one objected, this month's Field Work Google Hangout for my Mad Post Doc Student patrons and above will commence at 1:30 pm EST tomorrow! 

I'll post the link here once the Hangout is up and running. Let me know if you're definitely going to make it so I can invite you directly. 

Can't wait! I washed my face and everything!

I'll be cooking on Monday night for the Experiment's accompanying recipe, as my Lab Partner will be home from his travels and can take much p...

Another Little Bit of Stardust from Space Opera

Thanks to everyone for being patient with a slight delay in rewards--to make it up, here is another little tidbit from my Sekrit Project which is so Sekrit I can't actually tell you what it's about, except that it's called Space Opera and it'll be out next May. All my Totally Voluntary Test Subject already got to see the first chapter, this one is the beginning of Part 2. Hope you like it!

8. Hunter of Stars

Mira and Oort were wrong, by the way. The...

Very, Very Slight Postponement of March Rewards + Bonus Excerpt for All

Hey guys!

So I'm going to have to push the Wal-Mart trip and the other March rewards until the middle of the week--just a few days, I promise!--because I have to turn in a book on Monday and if I do not I will be in trouble, so I have to bunker down and make those space-flamingoes dance. 

I will need to sleep forever on Tuesday, so I'll be excursioning to the DVD bin Wednesday!

How does everyone feel about Saturday afternoon for the Google Hangout Q & A?

To make up f...

Live-Tweet Poll Winner and Laboratory Schedule

By ONE VOTE, you have decreed far and wide that I shall go hence unto Wal-Mart, stick my hand in thebargain DVD bin, shut my eyes, and live-tweet whatever I pull out! 

I AM EXCITED. THE POSSIBILITIES.

But I am also island-bound, because the blizzard has shut down ferry service and you can't get across the stormy water for love nor money. The Lab is hunkered down, the megapups are pouring wine into their dog bowls, the cats are trying to hide the Ultimate Snowstorm Cannon they built ...

Final Ballot for Live-Tweetapalooza!

Wow, you guys had so many suggestions as to what I might soundly mock upon the Twitters that there wasn't enough room for all of them on Patreon's poll-generator! Thank you so much for all that sweet, sweet participation. The Lab cannot do its gravitationally groovy thing without volunteers!

Note: you can vote for as many things as you want, no limits.

However, I had to leave some of your candidates off the ballot because of the limit on the number of poll options you ca...

Goal Achieved! Now Comes the Time When We Vote for What Thing I'll Live-Tweet This Month!

We reached a huge goal! I am so grateful, you guys, I can't begin to express it. Thank you so much for helping out the Lab so that we can keep on being a Lab. I wish I could hug you all.

I would LOVE to tell you a funny fictional story about my anthropomorphized boiler getting super excited about it except that the actual boiler actually died this morning due to an intense windstorm and -22 degree weather YAY. After being snuggled and made to feel safe and secure and being to...

Super Sekrit Space Squirrels Work in Progress Excerpt: Totally Voluntary Test Subjects Reward #1

Hello, gorgeous space patrons! Thank you so much for your support over the last two days, it has been truly crazy and amazing. The Lab is covered in cupcake wrappers and champagne corks and a mutant cupcake-champagne golem is crouching in the corner guzzling yet more champagne, which is weird, and the Denizens are currently huddles up determining whether or not that situation counts as cannibalism. 

Now, you get something in return! Something weird and glittery and secret and awesome and ...

New Stretch Goal!

Okay! So here's the new stretch goal *gestures awkwardly at side-column*

If we somehow manage to hit this crazy goal, every month, I will live-tweet a movie, 2-3 episodes of a TV show, or two hours of a video game chosen by my patrons! 

We'll have suggestions and then a poll every month, and the top vote-getter gets roasted. Or squee'd over embarrassingly, depending. I SWEAR I R FUNNY PROMISE.

I'll also squeeze some discussion of structure and technique in there between jokes....

GOOOOOOAL!

Oh my god, I can't believe it! We hit our second stretch goal just a few hours after the first! The Puppy in the White Lab Coat is breaking out the Valuable Belongings-to-Confetti Converter, the Cat of Mainly Dark Matter is firing up the Quantum Cake Locator, and the Dr. Scorch, the Boiler of Doom, has postponed its Conflagration Across the Nation plans in order to enjoy a festive oil-cocktail.

Each monthly Experiment will now include not only the hilarious essay on the craft and business of w...

My Bra Story Go On Show One

Oh my god! We've blown past out first stretch goal so quickly all the Lab Denizens got whiplash! 

So here's the reward!

When trying to caption the Patreon video for my hearing-impaired fans, we discovered that you REALLY don't want to use YouTube's native auto-captions. Because the YT robots are...let's just say creative...with their interpretations. Or maybe my mouth doesn't move right. Either way, the captions were so amazingly bad and absurd that we had to share with you. Enjoy!<...

Good Morning, Patreon!

Hello, everyone! *taps mic*

It's an unseasonably sunny morning in the Lab. The animals are restless, the beakers are bubbling, and the air is crisp and insolent. 

This Patreon is go!

I'm new to everything here and I can't wait to get started. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen--Heath Miller, Niki Taylor, Deb Brannon, and all my patrons and patrons-to-be. 

Here we go!

The Curious Case of a Wombat on the Internet

Hello, everyone! Now comes the time when I explain why there is a political poem about a wombat just below this post.

Yesterday, while discussing politics on Twitter, as seemingly everyone does all the time at the moment, I ended up in a pretty heated conversation with someone from Texas named Craig, who didn't much care for me saying I'd rather my tax dollars fund free school lunches for low-income kids than the putative First Lady's refusal to live in the White House. My dear friend Ursula V...

The Wombat Persisted

The Wombat Persisted

With credit also to Ursula Vernon, Eric Mills, and a somewhat unwitting and unwilling assist from a rather cross fellow in Texas named Craig

Forward on the wombat marched

Never shrinking, never blinking

Onward, onward, little wombat

Always thinking, always stinking!

“What’s a border?” asked the wombat “What’s all this noise about?”